


Feel Time Go Through Me

by the_rck



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Background Chiba Mamoru/Tsukino Usagi - Freeform, Family Bonding, Gen, Mild Angst, Tarot, tarot reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27290785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Chapter 2 is image heavy with pictures of tarot cards. The story is all in chapter 1."Ugh. Why do I have to be the page?" Usagi whined.Mamoru knew she was mostly teasing, so he did his best to conceal his twitch. Neither Usagi nor Chibiusa were looking at him, so he was pretty sure neither of them noticed.Chibiusa squared the deck of cards in her hand then stuck out her tongue at Usagi. "Because you're not the Queen!"
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Fic In A Box





	1. The Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jungle_ride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungle_ride/gifts).



> Title from Robert Bly's poem, "Sitting with My Mother and Father," which seemed appropriate all around.
> 
> This story is very vaguely anchored in the timeline in as much as it has to be after certain events. Beyond that, it could be at any point when these three might hang out together.

"Ugh. Why do I have to be the _page_?" Usagi whined.

Mamoru knew she was mostly teasing, so he did his best to conceal his twitch. Neither Usagi nor Chibiusa were looking at him, so he was pretty sure neither of them noticed.

Chibiusa squared the deck of cards in her hand then stuck out her tongue at Usagi. "Because you're not the Queen!"

"Yet," Mamoru said quietly enough that neither his future wife nor his future daughter heard him. He was glad of that because the whole future parents thing made Usagi feel trapped in a way that no other aspect of her future as Queen of Crystal Tokyo did.

Crystal Tokyo was a possibility, but there might be other equally right futures Usagi could find or create. Usagi wanted to be capable of being Neo-Queen Serenity, but she wanted it to be something she grew into by choice rather than the universe forced her to be.

Chibiusa only existed because Crystal Tokyo was inevitable. Usagi loved Chibiusa and was terrified of accidentally making her cease to exist. Usagi also recognized that Chibiusa's presence, here and now, was the universe-- and their future selves-- forcing her to interact with a child who couldn't exist if Usagi stepped off of the path of her destiny.

Neither Mamoru nor Usagi had any idea what would happen to Chibiusa if they turned away from being Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask for even a few weeks. Would a failed math class matter? Mamoru taking a job in Australia for a year?

It was blackmail, and Mamoru was quite sure that Chibiusa didn't know. The fact that his future self thought it was necessary chilled Mamoru to his marrow because it had to mean that he and Usagi would _want_ to make other choices.

Mamoru gave his attention back to Chibiusa and her tarot cards.

"You gotta be a woman to be queen!" Chibiusa insisted. She poked Usagi in the chest, provoking a squawk.

Mamoru wondered how long it would be before the cards were scattered across his floor. He suspected that Chibiusa was trying to get Usagi to flip the table.

Chibiusa ignored Usagi's scowl and started laying out cards. "Pluto taught me sixteen different ways to lay out the cards."

Usagi sighed. "And twenty nine different ways for predicting the future. You told us. Over and over and over."

Mamoru had already made sure that there wasn't anything throwable in their reach. He kept intending to get some little stuffed animals-- probably rabbits-- that his ladies could hurl at each other without risk of hurting each other or of breaking things he couldn't afford to replace.

"You're covered by the Ace of Rods reversed," Chibiusa said.

Judging by her tone, Mamoru was sure that whatever the card meant was something Chibiusa could use to prod Usagi.

"You keep putting things off," Chibiusa said. "No ambition and a lot of doubts. You _could_. You just don't want to because it's hard."

Definitely a judgy tone.

"Crossing you is The Empress. That's opposing your covering card. Usually, it'd be a thing you have to get past to keep moving, but this is you. The Empress is inevitable growth and expansion of powers." Chibiusa looked up and gave Usagi a forbidding look that she then turned on Mamoru. "The Empress is fertility, too. You're not allowed to make me a younger sister. Especially not this much younger. Not."

Mamoru couldn't help smiling, but he managed to swallow the laugh.

Usagi glanced and him and reddened.

Mamoru thought that teasing Usagi about it would be fun. Someday when it was just the two of them.

"Anyway," Chibiusa went on, "you don't have a choice about getting stronger." She sounded smug about it. She moved on to the next cards and frowned. "I don't get these." She pointed first at the card below the two crossed cards and the to the one to the right of those same two. "Kings are usually men. The one below you, the King of Rods reversed, could just be a betrayal by someone powerful who you trusted. Everything you're involved in comes from that person or that betrayal." Chibiusa shook her head.

Usagi and Mamoru looked at each other over Chibiusa's head. They weren't sure how much she knew about the fall of the Silver Millennium.

Chibiusa kept frowning at the cards.

"Oh, The Moon! That card must be me!" Usagi said cheerfully.

Mamoru recognized it as a distraction but suspected that Chibiusa wouldn't notice.

Chibiusa swatted Usagi's reaching hand. "That's your immediate past, not _you_. It's power available but mostly still unused. A lot of brainless instinct. Maybe it is you."

Mamoru raised a hand to cover a laugh.

Chibiusa seemed satisfied that she'd scored a point in whatever game of insults she and Usagi were currently playing. "Above you is the Three of Rods. That means travel and connections to distant places. Trading with them with strength and knowledge while still anchored at home." She looked up. "Those are your ultimate limits, not where you are now or where you're really going. You just could." The last sentence sounded dubious in a way that Mamoru recognized as Chibiusa trying to provoke an explosion.

Usagi obliged. "You--!" She shook a fist at Chibiusa.

"Ahead of you..." Chibiusa was back to one of the cards she'd pointed out as confusing. "Oh! I know! That's Haruka-nee! It's the King of Cups which is an older mentor, usually a father." She glanced at Mamoru then looked away. "I couldn't figure out who that could be, but Haruka-nee is sometimes... ah..."

Usagi nodded. "Yeah."

Mamoru decided not to ask. Either he'd figure it out, or he really didn't need to know.

"It's not all positive," Chibiusa went on. "The King of Cups makes judgments about you and has different goals than you do. Sometimes." She nodded, looking pleased that she'd gotten past that card.

"This is where it gets really complicated," Chibiusa said. She looked at Usagi. "Try to keep up."

Usagi stuck out her tongue at Chibiusa.

"Each of these two columns are sort of true, just different ways, and kind of not true because people _assume_ things instead of thinking about what makes sense."

Mamoru could see that there were four cards to either side of the central cross. He couldn't see what they looked like or guess what they meant.

"Each column goes together," Chibiusa said, "and each pair between columns are different sides of the same--" She gestured vaguely. "Both true. Both not," she finished firmly. "Do you want the pairs or the columns?"

Usagi froze, and it took Mamoru a moment to understand. Usagi was hearing a question that had to have a right and a wrong answer. If she answered wrong, Chibiusa would mock her. Usagi was probably also worried that both answers would lead to Chibiusa making fun of her.

"The columns are stories," Mamoru said. "Comparing the pairs should come after that." He didn't think it mattered much, but neither of his ladies would accuse him of being wrong, not when the other one was present to capitalize on it."

Usagi and Chibiusa both nodded.

"On the right," Chibiusa began. "The bottom card represents yourself in your current situation. The Tower reversed sucks because you're stuck, and it's your own fault because you just don't wanna. You think it's too _hard_. It's like the same thing as the Ace of Rods reversed but bigger and more stubborn."

Mamoru smothered a sigh. He still had trouble with the weight of someday becoming King Endymion. He could imagine how much harder thinking about becoming Neo-Queen Serenity must be.

Usagi deserved some time to just be ordinary. Making everything perfect looked intimidatingly impossible from where they all were now, and Usagi's heart wouldn't let her turn aside when she had evidence-- her future self-- that she could do it.

Mamoru had always hated the sorts of stories where people forgot the amazing things they'd done and that had happened to them, but he could also see that, for Usagi and her friends, it might have been a kindness.

Except that it would leave them unprepared for the next attack, and there was always going to be a next attack.

"The second card up," Chibiusa said, "is the people around you. It's the Four of Cups which is time for thinking about everything but also maybe not talking to each other and wanting different things and being stuck because of that.

"The third card up-- Oh, you gotta be glad it's there and now somewhere else. That's the Ten of Swords. It's ruin and doing bad things to try to get the good ending. It's killing people for power instead of protecting people." Chibiusa looked very serious. "That's in your hopes and fears, so it's just a worry and not something you'd actually _do_."

Mamoru thought that Chibiusa was studying Usagi, looking for something. He wondered how sure Chibiusa was that her mother had never done anything that terrible.

There might be a secret Dark-Queen Serenity. Chibiusa might have missed all the signs; her extended stay in the past might be intended to keep her from finding out. It might be intended to keep her from making her mother's mistakes.

Or to keep her not-yet-parents from making her parents' mistakes. Maybe the dreams King Endymion had sent were actually intended to--

No. Mamoru wasn't going to tangle himself up in that again. He'd just pay attention and remind Usagi to be kind.

"The top card is The World. It's an extra factor. It's a completion and new beginning. Unity, harmony, cycles." Chibiusa waved both hands in circles. "Around and around and around, but different, too."

Usagi's eyes were very wide.

"Do either of you want tea?" Mamoru asked. "I can heat the water pretty fast."

Usagi and Chibiusa both nodded, so Mamoru went to the kitchen and kept listening.

"The bottom card on the left is you again," Chibiusa said. "This time, it's the Six of Rods. That's a new leader with victories and everybody saying how great she is but also up higher and separate from everybody else."

Usagi made a small, distressed noice, but Chibiusa ignored it, and Mamoru decided not to intervene.

"The next card up is the people around you. The Five of Cups reversed. It's new hope after bad things and bad feelings and bad thoughts. It's a goal to go after when there wasn't one before."

Mamoru found he wasn't looking forward to discussing this reading later with Usagi. He'd thought it was cute that Chibiusa was taking it all so seriously and that Chibiusa expected them to indulge her.

This was... This was more disturbing than cute.

"Your hopes and fears over here are the Eight of Cups reversed. You're afraid you're stuck and that the emergencies-- the end of the world stuff-- are keeping you from doing anything good. You feel like you're not trying hard enough.

"The last card is the Ace of Pentacles," Chibiusa said. "That's a beginning. Because it's a Pentacle, you can call it a seed." She sounded pleased about that, and Mamoru suspected that it was mostly pleasure that she'd remembered a minor detail. "You've got something that _could_ grow, personal power to change the world and do... things. If you make it grow."

Mamoru suspected that this column was all the hard work. The happy ending of the first column just kind of happened without anyone earning it.

And it might not actually be happy. Completion and unity weren't always.

Mamoru was absolutely not going to point that out to Usagi. He didn't think even her heart could bear the possibility that the ending was always going to be Saturn and the Silence Glaive. Over and over and over with no escape.

All of them might be reborn after Crystal Tokyo fell and have to build Diamond Tokyo or Radioactive Tokyo or... Mamoru thought he must have all of the cynicism that Usagi couldn't afford to have.

He very deliberately didn't listen as Chibiusa did the compare and contrast of the paired cards from the two columns. He'd had enough, and he really needed his tea.


	2. The Tarot Reading (photo heavy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used the Hanson-Roberts deck.
> 
> Please forgive the not so great photography. I'd usually work on the floor for something like this, but that wasn't an option today.

**The Significator:** Page of Cups  


**Covering Card:** Ace of Wands reversed  


**Crossing Card:** The Empress  


**The Foundation Card:** The King of Rods reversed  


**The Immediate Past:** The Moon  


**The Limiting Card:** Three of Rods  


**The Immediate Future:** The King of Cups  


**The Central Cross:**  


**The Right Column:**  


**The Left Column:**  


**The Self Pair:** Six of Rods and The Tower Reversed  


**The Other People Pair:** Five of Cups reversed and Four of Cups  


**The Hopes and Fears Pair:** Eight of Cups reversed and Ten of Swords  


**The Additional Factors Pair:** Ace of Pentacles and The World  



End file.
